Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-09-11
ALL THE WORLD At WAR;
BY Walter Besant.
Author of shepherds All and Maidens
Fair" by Celia's ArbOr, 1.-THE Golden
Butterfly" etc, etc.
CHAPTER l.
IN RorsDON BAY.


There are not many places in England
which are more beautiful than Lynne
Regis, the place where my own Childhood
was spent. You have long hill slopes, Gov
cred with orchards and hanging woods;
you have broad valleys, in which are
peaceful hamlets and yellow corn fields;
YOU have open spaces on windy hill tops,
where tall thistlesare crowned with winged
balls of feathered spray, ready to be blown
to the four corners of the earth by the car
rier winds; you have chalk downs, with
bare turf, and here and there bright trout
stream, where you may see the quick-eyed
water rat, or even catch glimpse OF an
otter; you have straight and sturdy cliffs,
looking out upon the waste of waters; you
have here and there little port with Its
little town; and you have, as the towering
glory and splendor of the whole, the I'M
dercliff, with its bracken fields and grassy
knobs heaped one above the other, backed
by the crags and faced by the sea, telling
of fallen rocks and undermining waves.
Nv name, when l was child and ran
wild among these wonders, learning every
every day to feel their beauty more, was
Pleasance Noel. There are plenty of Noels
in Dorsetshire, but none OF my kin in Lyme;
nor do know how came to be born
there, nor anything about my mother, who
died when was born; nor much about my
father, who was ship carpenter by rank
and calling. / was born, i believe, In the
year one thousand seven hundred and
eighty.seven. never had birthday, be-
cause no one cared to remember such an
| insignificant circumstance as the birth OF
a sailors child. My father went down in
eighty-nine on board the Invincible, which
foundered in heavy gale of Jamaica,
with all hands except two or three. These
managed to get to land, or to be picked
up, forget which, and told the disastrous
story.
Dan Gulliyer came to my help, being
always the most kind-hearted Of men, and,
besides, friend of my fathers He lived
at Rousdon, which is three miles and
half from Lyme, being then widower
with two boys living, two or three years
older than myself.
There are a good many GulliveTs in Dor
setshire, as we'll as Noels. When l first
read "Gulliver's Travels" it was the more
real to me because | was sure that the
honest Captain must have come from my
part of the country, and was equally sure
that in appearance he greatly resembled
Dan.
Nobody, except his sons, ever called him
anything else but Dan. Not Mr.. CULVER,
or Daniel CULVER, but plain Dan. AS
early as | can remember him he had gray
hair. He was man of middle height and
strong build, with immense hands. he
had a face covered all over with crows foot
wrinkles, and it had the kindliest and
gentlest expression that can dwell upon
human cOuntenance; his light blue eyes
rested upon one when he spoke, rs If he
loved to look upon his friend; he was rs in
capable of thinking or speaking evil as Of
doing it. Therefore he was everybody Is
friend. / suppose he knew very little oil
evil, living as he did upon his seaboard
farm, as remote from tine world aud as lit
tie suspicious of danger as did those poor
men of Lash who ''dwelt after the manner
of the Zidonians, quiet and secure.
His estate consisted of a patrimOnial ten
acre slip, lying chiefly along the cliff. 1t
was poor piece of land, which grew Scanty
crops, hardly worth the trouble of Cultiva-
ton; but it gave occupation to the two
boys, Job and Jephthab, and to the one
farm laborer we employed, Isaac Agus;
Dan himself looked after the boats, OF
coure. II the land was poor, the farm.
house and yards showed every sign of pros
perity There were pigs which grunted in
the sites or roamed about the yards, grub
bling among roots with philanthrOpic re-
solve to waste no time in becoming good
pork; fowls which laid eggs and chuckled
over them; ducks which drove broods OF
little soft yellow balls, which might have
been cocoons had they not been live things,
into the pond; geese, on the waste of land,
which cackled to each other encouragement
to get fat come Michaelmas; and there were
the most generous of cows in the matter OF
milk The dairy where Mrs. Agus and l
made butter was always full of cream and
milk; there were hay rakes, piows, fails,
carts, hsrrows and all the signs of success
ful cultivation.
The twin boys, Job and Jephthah, were,
like their father, of middle height, with
broad shoulders and big hands; they were
rs exactly like each other as a pair OF
Cinnamon; but when you came to live in
the house you learned gradually to dis
tiuguish certain little differences not ap-
parent to strangers. Outside the farm no
one knew Jephthah from Job, and ad-
dressed either ut random as Job or Jeph-
than. They had blue eyes, like their
father, light brown hair and gentle way,
which they inherited. But they exagger-
ated the paternal characteristics. His gen.
tleness became, with them, slowness; his
taciturnity became absolute dumbness.
The most frequent visitor was Joshua
at Up Lyme. When was sixteen he must
have been six-and-twenty-some seven
years older than the boys. He, too, was
strongly built and well proportioned, but
he had the other Dorsetshire face-not that
of the Gullivers. Everybody knows that
there are two faces in DOrsetshire-that
with blue eyes aud brown hair, round
face, and that with dark hair and dark
eyes, an oval face; sometimes very beauti-
full, but sometimes fOrbidding and harsh.
Joshua's face had the latter character. His
eyes were too close together; his express
sion threatening; his chin was too long and
square; his manner was imperative. He
was masteriul mana man who always
got what be wanted; if he desired thing,
he said he should have it, and he got it.
The history, however, that follows is that
of thing which he desired vehemently
and did not get. Another visitor, and the
only other friend of the family, was the
rector of ROusdou, the Rev. Benjamin Bur
den.
Rousdon parish contained a population
of eleven souls, six of whom came from
Rousdon Farm. Its yearly value was E35
There was also house with bit of glebe,
The house was a cottage; the glebe land
was q eattage cultivated by the rector him
self. He had an orchard, the apples o.
which he sold for cider, . fruit and veg
etable garden, two or three pigs, some
fowls, and sometimes, the gift of his church
warden, some ducks. He was a bachelor
and lived entirely alone in his cottage
His church was q barn with a matched